When Publisher Anderson Charters bought Canadian Donor’s Guide in 2002, he knew the directory world was changing. Thus, in 2008, he launched CharityCAN, an online database incorporating the data from the Canada Revenue Agency and other sources for fundraising organizations and non-profit professionals looking to conduct prospecting research. In this exclusive Case Study, Charters and Associate Publisher Alison Stoneman spoke with us about how the site sells high-priced subscriptions by mining its own database and placing traditional outbound sales calls. Plus, learn the right (and wrong) way to develop an online B2B lead nurturing campaign and set up a conversion funnel for group subscriptions.
Company Profile
Founded: 2008 for CharityCAN, owned by Third Sector Publishing, a division of Charter Press Ltd.
No. of Publications: 3
Employees: 5 full-time, 9 part-time
Business Model: Subscription only
Paying Subscribers: 82 organizations (some with multiple seats)
Location: Orillia, Ontario, CA
Website: http://charitycan.ca/
http://www.canadianwhoswho.ca/
http://www.donorsguide.ca/
Target Market
CharityCAN’s primary market consists of Canadian non-profit institutions that are major fundraisers, and therefore, heavily invested in identifying and obtaining deep background information on major prospective donors. (This non-profit market includes a large majority of universities.) CharityCAN actually targets the largest 2,000 charities of its database of 85,000 registered Canadian charities.
A small secondary market of corporate subscribers exists, primarily interested in finding out who’s who and funding what for their Corporate Social Responsibility departments.
Content
CharityCAN’s content mainly consists of a database, combining its popular Canadian Whos’ Who publication with other government and private-sector data sets to create a sophisticated prospecting tool for subscribers. The site lists 85,000 Canadian charities, along with executive leadership, major donors, and other information prospectors need.
While the data is in the public domain and available online for free, CharityCAN’s unique selling point is that it streamlines search and compilation, making it easier and quicker for fundraising professionals conducting prospecting research to find the information they need.
Data is updated when it’s made available, which varies. For example, data delivered through APIs, such as the information from ZoomInfo, is updated continuously, while the Ontario Sunshine list — a database of the name and salary of anyone working in the Ontario public service, or entities funded by the Government of Ontario and making $100,000 or more — is updated annually. Data from the Canada Revenue Agency (the equivalent of the IRS) is sent monthly on discs since the government is not allowed to create APIs.
Charters stated that his company has the best and most complete data set on prospective donors to Canadian charities. Since the company cannot afford an in-house software developer at this time,CharityCAN is using third-party developers to write the code to upload and clean up public data sets. They began with a small vendor, but their needs have outgrown that vendor’s capabilities, so they have graduated to a slightly larger firm.
Revenues
CharityCAN generates CA $175,000 to CA $200,000 a year (approximately US $168,000 to US $191,000).
100% of revenues come from subscriptions.
The starting subscription price is CA $1,999, and then increases depending on the number of seats an organization needs. See the pricing chart below for more detail. (Note: this pricing is for organizations with non-profit status in Canada. Corporate subscriptions start at CA $2,599.)
Charters and Stoneman told us that the average account size for a non-profit subscriber is CA $2,500.
The site is yet to conduct price testing, or even change its price since it launched six years ago, although Charters mentioned that they are in the middle of a re-design and will increase the price after the re-launch.
Acquisition Tactics
CharityCAN is in the unique position of being able to use its own database to identify prospective subscribers, since major fundraising organizations are also registered charities. It will also look to upsell existing subscribers to Canadian Who’s Who, as well as Canadian Donor’s Guide advertisers. Thus, the site’s best acquisition tool is outbound calling and emailing by its 11-person sales staff (both full- and part-time). The site considers the largest 2,000 charities of the 85,000 registered non-profits to be its target market.
The site also engages in other “touch” marketing methods:
Tradeshows
CharityCAN belongs to the Association for Prospect Researchers of America and sponsors their events in Canada from time to time. Charters will also speak at events, such as an upcoming conference in Mexico that’s interested in the support network for the Canadian non-profit sector. However, at this time, the site does not have anyone formally handling PR events or establishing relationships with journalists.
Academic WOM
Like Vet Visuals, CharityCAN will give free access to graduate students, a smart way to build word-of-mouth recognition among your future target market. CharityCAN has established relationships with many higher education institutions with degrees and certificates in nonprofit fundraising, and Stoneman reports that she knows some subscribers have been former recipients of this gift subscription offer.
Social Media
CharityCAN has a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but Stoneman reports that “it’s so hard to measure!” and is unsure how much good it’s doing in terms of acquisition. However, one should note that CharityCAN’s site does not link to its social media pages, at least not overtly, making it harder to convert site visitors into social media followers.
SEO
CharityCAN engages in far too little SEO, an area the site plans to address after its re-design.
Conversion Tactics
CharityCAN offers free trials to prospects, although there are two different versions.
Prospects who have been contacted through outbound sales first get a free demo of the site, and then are signed up for a 3- to 5-day trial. (The trial can even be extended if the prospect simply didn’t have the time to look at the site during the trial period.)
Website visitors are offered the chance to conduct one “free basic charity search” or sign up for a 24-hour trial. However, those that sign-up for the trial need to be approved individually. Stoneman says that if the prospect gives a personal email address or seems not to be employed from a charity, she’ll deny the trial.
While it’s understandable that Stoneman and Charters would want qualified prospects from their trial, this is a highly inefficient way to conduct an online trial because it delays a user’s access (and consumers have grown to expect instant access online). Stoneman is right to think that non-profits don’t spend $2000 impulsively, and that many may prefer not dealing with salespeople (which is why the site created the free trial in the first place), but the execution of this trial creates far too many barriers. It would be wiser for CharityCAN to approve all prospects, but give them a “lite” version and get demographic information later. If they’re really worried about spammers and competitors signing up for a trial, they can require demographic information at sign-up.
Similarly, CharityCAN should require a credit card number during trial sign-up online, which it currently does not (however, it should continue to forego asking for a credit card when initiating trials for prospects who were approached through outbound sales efforts).
Once a trial is activated, Stoneman will notify her sales staff that there is a new user, and assign someone to follow-up with a free demo.
The site does have a video tutorial, which is a best practice. However, it’s a bit long, clocking in around 15 minutes.
In addition, the site has an unusual conversion funnel for subscribers — the Subscribe button takes prospects to a lengthy “terms of service” disclaimer, with no indication of plans or pricing.
This should be changed immediately. We recommend checking out Datamyne‘s or Equilar‘s conversion funnel for ideas, as well as the three-user trial created by GenomeWeb. (We also recommend that readers interested in discovering more proven tactics for selling group subscriptions attend next week’s Webinar. Insider members will automatically be sent a link on Tuesday, Nov. 12th, so no need to sign up — just mark it down on your calendar.
Retention Tactics
CharityCAN’s renewal rate is around 90%, which is on par with industry benchmarks for group subscriptions.
The site does not yet measure average account lifetimes, but it does make contact before annual renewal and asks its subscribers if they want a print reminder or invoice. Stoneman also states that CharityCAN is always eager to receive feedback from users in order to improve its services. In fact, Charters will often hold luncheons with subscribers and prospects to find out what trends are emerging in prospect researching and where the field is going.
About Anderson Charter and Alison Stoneman
As the owner of the family business, Anderson Charters was looking for ways to keep the family’s directory publishing business afloat in the early 2000s. In 2002, he purchased Canadian Donor’s Guide, and began researching business models online. He became aware of the US site Guidestar and realized there was no equivalent in Canada. Hence, CharityCAN was born.
He says his biggest lesson learned was how difficult the software development is to create a site of CharityCAN’s sophistication. “It’s an ongoing challenge, particularly for a business our size,” he says. “We’re a family-owned business, we don’t have outside capital. It’s always a question — how do we manage the investment needed, given the size of the business?”
He advises other in the database subscription business to learn as much as they can. “That’s why I was at DataContent,” he says. “I don’t have many contacts in Canada in small business data publishing.”
Alison Stoneman, who has been with CharityCAN since the beginning, reiterated that desire for continuous education, but with a focus on real-life feedback: “We always ask for feedback from our subscribers and people who take trials, and you have to listen to that feedback.”
Vendors & Technology
Hosting, Email management and Web design & development — ProNet
http://www.orilliapronet.com/
Payment processing –Beanstream
http://www.beanstream.com/home/
Telemarketer out of Philippines
Analytics — Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/
Insider Analysis
First, kudos to Charters and his company for recognizing that the Internet was sure to change his business and the fundraising prospecting industry. We’ve seen too many publications and industry professionals remain in denial for too long (ahem, newspapers, we’re looking at you), and Charters’ forward thinking should be applauded.
We also like how the site has taken a B2B sales approach to acquiring subscribers. Too often, subscription content sites forego proven marketing methods in favor of trends and buzz words. We also like that the site has created a high-priced subscription data product from a combination of public sources and re-purposed internal content. Brilliant! And the site’s renewal tactics are laudatory, even without formal measurement of account lifetimes.
As expected, we recommend a major overhaul of the site’s online marketing tactics, starting with their free trial. Instead of looking to qualify prospects at that stage, CharityCAN should allow anyone and everyone to sign up for a free trial and get immediate 24-hour access. Alternatively, they can forego a free trial and just let people sign up for a free demo when they enter their organization and a business email.
Secondly, the site needs a more optimized conversion funnel for subscribers. We suggest looking at Datamyne, Equilar and GenomeWeb for ideas on how to present plans and pricing and ask for information from prospects in a friendly way. Terms of Service should NEVER be the first thing prospective subscribers see. A concise statement of benefits is a much better way to begin.
Lastly, the site should link to its social media accounts throughout its website (nothing dominating key real estate, just small icons on the side or bottom of the pages), and re-record its tutorial to be both briefer and more engaging. We recommend using a voice-over artist (who can be found rather cheaply on fiverr.com) and keeping the tutorial to under a minute if possible, definitely no more than three.
